Good Practice Seminars Archives - National Oversight & Audit Commission

Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2026

National Oversight & Audit Commission — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:52:00 +0000

NOAC hosted its eighth Good Practice in Local Government Seminar, in collaboration with the Local Government Management Agency and the County and City Management Association, in the historic surrounds of Kilkenny Castle on 10^th March 2026.

This key event in the local government calendar allowed for the showcasing of a wide range of local authority initiatives such as the Development and Implementation of Equity Register Module for Affordable Housing Scheme, the launch of 'Lámhleabhar Gaeilge', Online Purchase Request Form for libraries, 60+ Climate Action Drive, HR Onboarding App and Robitic Process Automation of the MyPay Superannuation Starter Notification Process

The projects on show demonstrated examples of good practice in local government that can be replicated across much of the sector, encouraging the sharing of knowledge within the sector and allowing local authorities to improve the lives of the communities that they serve.

View Press Release 10 March 2026

View Brochure

View full Presentation

Case Study Presentations

View individual presentations from the seminar below:

Fingal County Council

Fingal County Council developed and implemented an Equity Register Module on Agresso to assist in the management of its role as a secondary lender under the Affordable Housing Scheme, where the Council retains a long term equity share in affordable homes. Managing equity shares investment involves meticulous tracking of complex financial and legal information, including purchaser details, equity percentages, redemption payments, and associated legal documents.

To address risks around accuracy, security, and long term management, Fingal County Council collaborated with Ascendas Business Solutions who were engaged to develop a Loans Module for Agresso. The module automates complex equity calculations, enhances reporting, and ensures transparency in managing public funds.

The equity Register is now fully operational in Fingal County Council and has delivered significant benefits -

Registered 1,046 affordable properties;

Recorded €69 million in equity shares issued to purchasers;

Streamlined reporting and departmental grant drawdowns; provides robust data for forecasting and financial planning; the project demonstrates best practice through its strong interdepartmental coordination, partnership with an Irish software provider, and its scalability for use by other local authorities. It addresses the core challenge of safeguarding significant financial and legal information related to long-term equity shares under the Affordable Housing Scheme, ensuring transparent, accountable management of public funds.

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Offaly County Council

The publication of Lámhleabhar Gaeilge represents a practical and innovative step towards promoting the Irish language within Offaly County Council. This initiative demonstrates how local authorities can lead by example in conserving and promoting our national language. By focusing on accessibility, usability, and statutory compliance, the handbook empowers staff and Councillors to engage with Irish in a meaningful way, ensuring it remains a living part of our daily interactions.

This initiative demonstrates how Offaly County Council is embedding Irish language use into its internal culture, rather than treating compliance as a mere formality. It reflects a genuine commitment to making Irish visible and accessible in the workplace, in line with national policy objectives for language preservation and revitalisation as we move towards 2030.

The handbook was circulated internally to all Councillors in 2025, accompanied by a short briefing session to explain its purpose and demonstrate its use. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Staff have reported feeling more comfortable incorporating Irish into emails and meetings, while Councillors have expressed appreciation for a resource that supports them in fulfilling their public role with confidence.

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Cork County Council

The library purchasing team identified the need to improve the internal paper-based system by moving to an online digital system.

Staff in the purchasing team work with Cork County Council’s Service Design and Transformation Team (SDT) to develop an online request form on the staff portal. The process involved initial consultation between librarians and the SDT team followed by building, reviewing and revising the form.

It was then piloted in two branch libraries, rolled out across all branches and finally evaluated through a staff feedback survey.

The introduction of the forms has resulted in:

Streamlined and centralised purchase requests, improving tracking, transparency, and team collaboration;

Continuity of purchase requests being received regardless of staff absences or delivery delays with internal post;

Increased efficiency because of standardised data inputs;

The online form should reduce paper usage in alignment with long-term sustainability goals;

Provision of accurate monthly statistics on purchase requests for informed planning and reporting.

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Galway County Council

The 60+ Climate Drive was delivered as a grassroots, community-based initiative led voluntarily by retired UN Resident Coordinator Jacinta Barrins. She designed and facilitated a six-week climate action course for older adults, travelling across Galway City and County to meet groups in their own communities. The conversational, accessible format of this drive ensured participants felt confident exploring climate science and behaviour change.

The project exemplifies good practice by demonstrating how local authorities can collaborate effectively with skilled external experts. Through partnership with Galway County Council’s Climate Action Unit, Jacinta aligned her outreach with local priorities while engaging Men’s Sheds, Women’s Groups, carers’ networks and Active in Age groups—showcasing a scalable, low cost engagement model that other councils can replicate.

The initiative responds to a clear need to engage older adults - a demographic often overlooked in climate policy. By addressing gaps in climate literacy and motivation, the project empowers over-60s to take meaningful, practical climate action.

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Kildare County Council

Kildare County Council’s Onboarding App was delivered through a fully collaborative, in-house partnership between the HR Recruitment Team and the IT Development Section. Using existing Microsoft Power Platform licences, the project was designed through joint workshops, iterative testing, and inclusive decision making, ensuring the system reflected real operational needs while incurring zero additional cost.

The project exemplifies best practice by demonstrating how local authorities can leverage existing technologies to solve shared challenges such as high recruitment volumes, remote accessibility, data security, and paper heavy processes. Its success highlights opportunities for wider sectoral collaboration, the same pattern (Dataverse, Power Apps, Power Automate, MS Graph API and iDocs) can be used and adapted for other services, supporting council wide digital consistency.

The app addresses the significant increase in recruitment activity since 2020 and the inefficiencies of a manual, paper-based onboarding process. It creates a streamlined, paperless, auditable workflow that improves efficiency, reduces risk, supports blended working, and provides real-time recruitment data for enhanced decision making.

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Laois Council Council

The MyPay RPA Starters project introduced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate the Superannuation Starter Notification process within Local Government’s flagship payroll and superannuation shared service (MyPay). The process had been manual, repetitive, and resource-intensive, with increasing volumes and compliance demands placing pressure on staff capacity and turnaround times.

Delivered under the Office of Government Procurement RPA Framework and primarily funded by the DHLGH’s Local Government Digital Transformation Fund with great support from the LGMA’s PMO office, the project deployed an unattended software bot (“Mandy”) to validate, process, and update starter notifications across systems with minimal human intervention.

The solution has processed over 2,700 starter notification forms since the project launch in April 2025, delivering efficiency savings comparable to approximately three full-time equivalents, improving data accuracy, strengthening audit controls, and enabling staff redeployment to higher-value work. The approach is scalable, transferable to other shared service processes, and demonstrates practical, people-centred digital transformation within Local Government.

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Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2025

National Oversight & Audit Commission — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 10:38:00 +0000

NOAC hosted its seventh Good Practice in Local Government Seminar, in collaboration with the Local Government Management Agency and the County and City Management Association, in the historic surrounds of Kilkenny Castle on 13^th February 2025.

This key event in the local government calendar allowed for the showcasing of a wide range of local authority initiatives such as an application and dashboard for a tree survey, the creation of a youth programme, an initiative to enhance customer service, an application to enhance how rates are collected, the livestreaming of local elections and a project showing the acquisition and conversion of a commercial property for residential use.

View Press Release - 13 February 2025

View Event Brochure

View the Full Seminar Part 1

View the Full Seminar Part 2

Case Study Presentations

View individual presentations from the seminar below:

Clare County Council

Clare County Council have developed a tree survey application and a dashboard to deliver insights into tree species, diameter, height, crown spread, age, structural condition, recommendations, retention category, and risk rating. This initiative enhances operational efficiency, optimizes resource allocation, and improves environmental planning, providing significant tangible benefits for sustainable urban development and ecological preservation. This innovative tool transforms tree management from reactive to proactive, delivering significant cost savings and improved public safety.

Click Here To View Video

Cork County Council

Cruinniú na nÓg is Ireland’s National Day of Creativity for Children and Young People. It is a flagship project of Creative Ireland and local authorities are responsible for delivering activities in their administrative areas. Cork County Council’s Cruinniú na nÓg Programme 2024 was almost entirely programmed by the children of Cork County through the “My Creative Wish” Initiative. This new approach to the programme led to increased participation, meaningful engagement and community awareness. The project involved youth consultation, through My Creative Wish, with the children and young people of Cork in order to ascertain their needs and wants in terms of the programme.

The process included:

Over 700 submissions being received from 36 schools.
17 winning submissions being selected to receive six weeks of workshops with professional creative practitioners for their classes.
13 runners up received 4 tickets to taster workshops in libraries.

The initiative resulted in a 450% increase in participation, more meaningful engagement, a rise in public awareness of Cruinniú na nÓg and saw 75% of all library events fully subscribed as a result of this work.

Click Here To View Video

Donegal County Council

The delivery of efficient, high-quality services is a key issue for the public sector. Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Donegal engaged in a pilot Lean initiative as an opportunity to enhance customer service, digitalise processes and drive internal efficiencies.

The Lean methodology, rooted in the Toyota Production System, is widely used in the private sector. It emphasises the elimination of waste, continuous improvement, and the optimization of processes. The primary goal is to deliver maximum value to customers.

The project adopted the Lean tools and techniques as a vehicle to review internal processes, improve operations and create a more innovative organisation. In a nutshell, Lean allowed the process to improve, do things quicker, better and at less cost.

The Lean adoption journey has helped transform internal processes, accelerate digital transformation and enhance service delivery. As a result of the initiative, LEO Donegal has digitalised all processes including enquiries, grant applications and grant payments, enhanced service delivery response times and increased productivity. Most importantly, the methodology offered a framework to create a culture of continuous improvement with a focus on the customer.

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Kildare County Council

Kildare County Council’s initiative is a joint collaboration between its Commercial Rates Department, GIS and Development Teams on the development of an application.

The application uses keys datasets such as GeoDirectory, Planning Permission Data, Rates Valuation Data, Agresso and Debt Management Data to ensure the Council is capturing all new commercial properties and maximising its rates income from over 5,000 properties that generate rates of over €63m.

The application also includes a commencement notice application to ensure any newly commenced rateable properties are captured and sent for rating.

The teams are also currently expanding this work to further enhance this application including an interface with Tailte Éireann.

This application has enabled the teams to move from a field-based collection approach to a hybrid approach that enables analysis on any device in any work setting.

Click Here To View Video

Meath County Council

In June 2024, local elections were held in all 31 local authorities across Ireland. There were 40 seats to be filled across six Municipal Districts in Meath with over 90 candidates running, with Simonstown Count Centre being a bustling hub of activity. A number of challenges being faced in terms of communications during this time included:

Ensuring that every citizen in Meath would have access to real-time information, regardless of whether they were physically present.
To provide news promptly and to be the primary source of information for updates online, particularly given the prevalence of social media and the ability to deliver news instantly. This included competing with candidates, journalists, and other stakeholders in the count centre.
To raise citizen awareness about the workings of a local election.

While the candidates, election staff, and local press could fully experience the count centre and witness the work of the Council and the democratic process first-hand, this opportunity was only available to a select few. The goal was to find a way to bring this experience to all Meath’s citizens.

It was proposed to livestream the event, a ground-breaking concept for an Irish local election. By live streaming the event on a virtual platform, this would allow for the promotion of the event on social media, increased engagement rates and sharing of the process with others who wouldn’t normally participate.

The output of the initiative allowed the online audience to receive information simultaneously with those attending in person, making Meath County Council the main source of information on the local election.

The video of the event is available to the public and can be used as an educational resource with the ability to share the URL with educational institutions throughout the county. Furthermore, the Council can use the video for future election preparations.

Click Here To View Video

Dublin City Council

The Adaptive Reuse Unit in Dublin City Council was established in 2022 within the Housing and Community Services Department. As an innovation unit, it was tasked with establishing a new housing development mechanism that would create social housing by acquiring and converting vacant commercial property to homes.

The project in question nominated as an example of showcasing innovation and good practice is the Adaptive Reuse Project Creating Social Housing From Vacant Office Buildings on Fitzwilliam Quay in Dublin 4.

The building in question became available on the market in 2023 and Dublin City Council carried out a feasibility study and developed a proposal for the conversion of the buildings to apartments for use as social housing.

Funding was secured through the DHLGH Social Housing Investment Programme to acquire the buildings and convert them to 15 apartments at a total cost of circa €420,000 per apartment. This represents excellent value for money for social housing delivery in a high-value property location.

The vacant office building was acquired by Dublin City Council in March 2024 with 15 new social housing apartments are planned for delivery in 2026.

The reuse of existing buildings to create new homes is a key means of achieving carbon reduction targets in the coming years, and is consistent with the approach set out in the Irish Green Building Council’s Roadmap to 2030. In particular, the building in question is located in an area identified as a designated decarbonisation zone and the project is being delivered as an exemplar climate action project.

Additionally, the project involves the reuse of the fittings and fixtures in advance of the main works to convert the office building to apartments. The project complies with national & local government best practice and policy in relation to the circular economy.

The building is also be used as a community hub for climate action promotion and support by Dublin City Council’s Climate Action Office. This will ensure that the maximum potential of the building can be harnessed, and corporate policy aimed at addressing underuse of vacant buildings is complied with.

Click Here To View Video

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Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2023

National Oversight & Audit Commission — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 08:23:00 +0000

The 6th annual Good Practice in Local Government Seminar, organised by NOAC, in collaboration with the Local Government Management Agency and the County and City Management Association, presented a wide range of local authority innovations across numerous areas such as renewable technology, building on crisis management, recruitment, education, tourism, strategy development and accommodation assistance for vulnerable persons.

The hybrid event, held both in-person and virtually in Kilkenny Castle, took place on 26^th October 2023 as part of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform’s Public Service Transformation Week 2023 and was attended by Chief Executives and senior officials from the local authorities within Ireland. The showcase provided an opportunity for local government to demonstrate good practice within the sector and gave a platform to share innovative projects that could be replicated across Ireland.

View Press Release - 26th October 2023

View Event Brochure

View the Full Seminar

Case Study Presentations

View individual presentations from the seminar below:

Wicklow County Council

The installation of the solar panel car ports at County Buildings in
Wicklow is a great example of using existing sites, such as car parks,
to generate renewable energy and assist in achieving Climate
Change targets.
One of the main barriers to delivering large scale energy efficiency and
renewable projects is finance. To overcome this issue Wicklow Council
tendered for an innovative design, build, finance, maintain and operate
contract to provide a 300kW solar PV array to meet 40% of County
Building’s baseload demand. This ensured there was no capital cost
to the local authority and in return the Council agreed to pay a fixed
unit rate for all energy produced by the solar array for a 20 year period.
Currently this rate is about a third of the cost of electricity from the
grid. This project is the largest solar car port installation in Ireland.

Dublin City Council

Dublin City Council has over 18 months commenced two distinct recruitment initiatives attracting new employees into its operational workforce. These have focused on increasing opportunities for citizens living in areas faced with socio economic challenges through the development of targeted recruitment campaigns and a traineeship programme.

A collaborative and cooperative approach was undertaken between Dublin City Council Human Resources and operational departments and a range of local stakeholders leading to delivering successful local recruitment campaigns and a local authority specific traineeship programme.

These initiatives have allowed Dublin City Council to foster positive relationships with local education and employment services and strengthen existing partnerships with local communities. The outcome of the initiatives has been the successful recruitment of more than 100 new employees into Dublin City Councils operational workforce and the establishment of a distinct traineeship programme providing a new pathway for employment into the Local Authority sector.

Kerry County Council

Local authorities have provided significant support in responding to the accommodation and other needs of those arriving from Ukraine, where in Kerry, under the stewardship of Kerry County Council, the Community Response Forum was repurposed as part of a high-level governance framework, to ensure effective cross-sector collaboration. This has resulted in the establishment of proactive governance structures, responding consistently to real-life situations, and promoting integration through the development of response initiatives to over 8,000 beneficiaries of temporary protection (BOTP) across the County.

The collaborative approach and the current structures supporting the Community Response Forum in Kerry are enabling dynamic cross-sector teams to deliver on the ground. The local area response teams, for example, have been a crucial link to front-line services and the county coordination team has developed innovative solutions in response to elevated concerns raised at a local level such as the development of a Step-by-Step Guide for Ukrainian Refugees, an Independent Living Guide, a House Rules Guide for Accommodation Providers and Residents, and an information guide to inform Ukrainians about the systems and supports that exist when someone passes away.

Galway County Council

The Galway County Council Housing Disability Steering Group was set up as part of their Strategic Plan for Housing People with a Disability 2021-2026. Within that, a number of subgroups to specifically look at cases under each category of disability were established.

The MH subgroup is person-centred, allows for case discussion and progression of complex cases and vulnerable clients that would otherwise not be housed. It is a partnership approach between the local authority and HSE to progress mutual clients.It offers a communication pathway and, for clients with additional needs, to progress to having their own tenancies.

Outcomes:

Access for individuals to tenancies that are planned with supports in place.
Quality housing for vulnerable applicants – ‘Housing for All’.
Inclusion in policy.
Preventing people from becoming entrenched in long stay institutional and residential settings that are unsuitable, expensive and inappropriate for the people’s needs.

The work of the Mental Health subgroup is 'Equality & Human Rights in the
Public Service in practice'

Longford County Council

Longford County Council in partnership with schools and industry hopes to shape Longford’s future through technology and its introduction to primary and secondary schools. Through the Council’s digital strategy, we hope to create the platform that will see Computer Science a Leaving Cert option in all secondary schools in the county.

Our project will help prepare our county for the jobs and opportunities and the lives we could all lead in years to come. Following the closure of peat activities in the south of the county (ESB Peat Station in Lanesboro) and changes in agriculture, Longford like other counties in our region is in transition.

The Longford children that will benefit from this project will help drive our economy in years to come, and by working with primary and post primary schools, in partnership with industry, Longford County Council can help develop the digital potential in our children for future jobs, challenges, and the opportunities that will come in a county eager to realise the benefits of the National Broadband Plan.

Cork County Council

In response to challenges facing the tourism sector following Covid-19, Cork County Council endeavoured to create a marketing tool that would assist this sector of the economy.

Cognisant of the importance of furthering the digitisation of the sector, a GIS tourism map was developed in 2020 using in-house resources. The success of the map led to development by CCC in 2021 of the ‘Explore Cork’ app, a one-stop shop tourism app featuring over 850 places to see and things to do: the first of its kind to be developed by any Local Authority in Ireland.

The project was an in-house collaborative initiative between relevant Directorates, exemplifying best-practices. Cork County Council worked with the successful tenderer, in developing the app, as well as liaising with relevant stakeholders.

The app won the LAMA award for ‘Best Tourism Initiative’ in 2023.

Local Government Management Agency

Digital Local Government: Working for Everyone is Ireland’s new Local Government Digital and ICT Strategy. The strategy aims to use digital and ICT to improve the way we work and deliver services in local government.

An extensive engagement process was undertaken during the development of the strategy. Stakeholders consulted included members of the public, staff, persons with disabilities, older persons, people from minority communities, Councillors, and technology vendors.

The strategy includes four core themes – Digital Systems, Digital Communities, Digital Workforce and Digital Systems. These consist of statements of intent which present our aspirations and what will be achieved over the course of the strategy.

A strategy implementation plan has been developed which sets out 73 actions that will enable delivery of the strategy. This plan will be reviewed on an annual basis to ensure that it remains relevant and is delivering as required.

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Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2022

National Oversight & Audit Commission — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 10:04:03 +0000

This Good Practice Seminar is organised by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), in partnership with the County and City Management Association (CCMA) and is an opportunity for local authorities to showcase examples of solutions-oriented approaches to providing better public services.

Local authorities in Ireland continuously strive to deliver excellent services to citizens. The local government sector’s ability to adapt to the evolving needs of citizens and policy priorities of national and local government, reflects the agility and commitment of the elected members and staff of City and County Councils throughout Ireland.

View Press Release - 25th October 2022

View Event Brochure

Good Practice in Local Government: Full Seminar

View the full seminar including contributions from the following:

Case Study Presentations

View individual presentations from the seminar below:

ISACs- Irish Local Authorities Sharing Cyber Information

Presentation by Ms. Ruth Buckley | Chief Information Officer

Cork City Council

The risk of a cyber event is one of the highest ranked corporate risks in the local government sector. The level of collaboration amongst all 31 Irish local authorities has always been high, particularly amongst the HIS group, the Heads of Information Systems.
An ISAC (Information sharing analysis centre) is a type of information sharing community, typically made up of organisations in the same sector such as water, transport, banking, etc. ENISA the EU cyber agency, has advocated the adoption of ISACs as part of the EU cyber shield proposed in the 2020 EU Cyber Strategy. This project with the support of the IVI Maynooth, the NCSC (National cyber security centre) and the LGMA (Local government management agency) is establishing the first Irish ISAC and the Irish local organisations are working to reach a level 1 maturity against the Dutch ISAC maturity model. The improved cyber situational awareness by the local government sector is already improving decision making at all levels of the sector and improving our understanding of the cyber incident life cycle.

CCTV - Data Protection and the Path to Innovation

Presentation by Mr Alan Dooley | Head of I.S. - Digital Strategy – EU Programmes

Limerick City and County Council

In 2022, Limerick City & County Council had to put together an urgent and critical response to findings issued by the Data Protection Commissioner on the use and governance of CCTV. At the core of this were the guidelines, principles and legislation associated with the processing of personal data via the medium of CCTV. The remediation efforts were successful, but the momentum gathered from the effort became a spring board for innovative solutions to standard work practices.
The Council is on a journey to bring modern technology solutions to the table to tackle the challenges of data and process governance on an enterprise scale. This takes significant strides towards the automation of repeatable work processes, with the potential to release workforce capacity and lock in good data privacy practices. Embracing the need to evolve how we work with personal data in a secure and automated way, is the driver for change.

Accelerating the use of drones for Local Government

Presentation by Ms Veronica Mariti Sosoke | Director of Services & Mr Jamie Cudden | Smart City Program Manager

Dublin City Council

The “Accelerating the Potential of Drones for Local Government” project was led by Dublin City Council and funded by DPER’s public sector innovation fund with the objective to better position Ireland in the application of drone technologies. The project delivered on a number of outcomes which included: training materials to upskill staff in drones regulation and compliance; toolkits to support data protection; international best practice reports and a national survey with over 900 respondents to better understand public sentiment for drone applications. Drone technology is evolving and growing with increased usage across public services. The technology has the potential to enhance and support operations in areas such as emergency response, surveying and mapping, planning and enforcement and traffic and environmental monitoring. As the drone market matures, so too do the opportunities to better utilise this technology to deliver safer, more efficient services.

Sustainable Energy Centre of Excellence

Presentation by Mr Brian Beck | Director of Service

Tipperary County Council

The Martyr’s Road Regeneration Quarter, a 10 ha. strategic site of brownfield lands and underutilised properties is located in the heart of Nenagh. This project, which was awarded funding by the DHLGH through the URDF, seeks to bring the vision for the town and site to fruition, through transformative place-making with the ambition to deliver a demonstrator regeneration urban quarter through the creation of an Iconic Building (SECOE Ireland) which will act as an exemplar of how we could live as a Low Carbon and Climate Resilient Community.
The new Quarter will be delivered by applying the innovative integration of spatial and energy planning, harnessing renewable energy and passive building technologies, providing sustainable transport infrastructure and active public open spaces rich in biodiversity. It will support the Government’s targets for a cleaner, greener economy set out in the Climate Action Plan and the objective to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

Build to Share

Presentation by Mr Stephen Brady | Director of Service Corporate Services Department

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown

The concept of ‘Build to Share’ (BtS) is a key pillar in national and sectoral ICT Strategies due to the potential benefits that can accrue when digital solutions are built once and can be easily shared with other public sector bodies. The potential benefits of this are obvious, including lower costs and the speedier deployment of systems.
Bearing in mind that all ICT solutions evolve and change as technology and requirements change, ‘sharing’ over the lifespan of a solution can be complex. The local government BtS project aims to establish an approach to the development of digital systems, ongoing governance structures and a means to showcase solutions so that LAs can adopt them if they wish. The goal is to publicise the 7 digital BtS systems that have already been developed, and to encourage the further development and sharing of new solutions.

Leitrim Connected

Presentation byMr Laurence Kennedy | Senior Staff Officer Corporate Services & Ms. Mary Quinn | Director of Service Housing, Corporate Services,

Leitrim County Council

‘Leitrim Connected’ is an app development project that unifies communications from Leitrim County Council, Fire and Emergency Services, An Garda Síochána, and community alert groups. The project will bring together Council communications relating to emergencies, infrastructure works, Council initiatives and Garda communications under one app-based system which will be free to the public.
The project envisages communicating key emergency and nonemergency information to the widest community possible across multiple channels (SMS, a dedicated messaging app and social media platforms) which will be of benefit to both the agencies operating the system and the citizens of Leitrim alike. Alerts can be targeted to citizens based on a number of criteria such as community area, distance from a location, a route corridor etc. This project was originally initiated by the Joint Policing Committee who identified the need for a cross agency communications platform to better inform and engage with the public.

Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis - Local Authority Response

Presentation by Ms Niamh McCarthy | National Coordinator Emergency Vacant Housing Delivery (Ukraine) unit

Since the 24th February 2022, the military assault on Ukraine by the Russian Federation has caused a humanitarian crisis of a scale no witnessed in Europe for more than 80 years, or since the Second World War. Over 8 million Ukrainians have been displaced with over 50,000 presenting in Ireland.
Local authorities have provided significant support to national government in responding to the accommodation and other needs of those arriving from Ukraine, and have been key to the provision of emergency centres, stepping up their community forum and ensuring that the vulnerable cohort are welcomed into our communities. Due to the scale of the crisis, local authorities have adopted innovative approaches to the delivery of services and supports. This presentation will focus on highlighting a range of these best practices across the sector.

ISACs- Irish Local Authorities Sharing Cyber Information

Presentation by Ms. Ruth Buckley | Chief Information Officer

Cork City Council

The risk of a cyber event is one of the highest ranked corporate risks in the local government sector. The level of collaboration amongst all 31 Irish local authorities has always been high, particularly amongst the HIS group, the Heads of Information Systems.
An ISAC (Information sharing analysis centre) is a type of information sharing community, typically made up of organisations in the same sector such as water, transport, banking, etc. ENISA the EU cyber agency, has advocated the adoption of ISACs as part of the EU cyber shield proposed in the 2020 EU Cyber Strategy. This project with the support of the IVI Maynooth, the NCSC (National cyber security centre) and the LGMA (Local government
management agency) is establishing the first Irish ISAC and the Irish local organisations are working to reach a level 1 maturity against the Dutch ISAC maturity model. The improved cyber situational awareness by the local government sector is already improving decision making at all levels of the sector and improving our understanding of the cyber incident life cycle.

CCTV - Data Protection and the Path to Innovation

Presentation by Mr Alan Dooley | Head of I.S. - Digital Strategy – EU Programmes

Limerick City and County Council

Accelerating the use of drones for Local Government

Presentation by Ms Veronica Mariti Sosoke | Director of Services & Mr Jamie Cudden | Smart City Program Manager

Dublin City Council

Sustainable Energy Centre of Excellence

Presentation by Mr Brian Beck | Director of Service

Tipperary County Council

Build to Share

Presentation by Mr Stephen Brady | Director of Service Corporate Services Department

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown

Leitrim Connected

Presentation byMr Laurence Kennedy | Senior Staff Officer Corporate Services & Ms. Mary Quinn | Director of Service Housing, Corporate Services,

Leitrim County Council

Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis - Local Authority Response

Presentation by Ms Niamh McCarthy | National Coordinator Emergency Vacant Housing Delivery (Ukraine) unit

You can find presentations from previous Good Practice Seminars at the following:

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Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2021

National Oversight & Audit Commission — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 11:01:42 +0000

NOAC’s annual Good Practice in Local Government Seminar took place on 9 November 2021 in Kilkenny Castle, County Kilkenny. This Good Practice Seminar is organised by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), in partnership with the County and City Management Association (CCMA) and is an opportunity for local authorities to showcase examples of solutions-oriented approaches to providing better public services.

The case studies presented below illustrate the sector’s commitment to improving efficiency in the delivery of services to the citizen, regeneration of urban and rural areas, and measures tackling the increasing demands of the climate action and carbon agenda. The objective of the seminar is to provide local authorities with an opportunity to learn from each other and build on innovative approaches to service delivery. The case studies presented are a sample of the many equally impressive and important methods being adopted by local authorities to achieve their objectives. It is the intention of NOAC, the LGMA and the CCMA to continue to showcase good practice to build on successful initiatives and ensure that the local government sector is recognised as the most innovative public service in Ireland.

NOAC’s Good Practice in Local Government Seminar took place on 9 November 2021 in Kilkenny Castle, County Kilkenny. This Good Practice Seminar is organised by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), in partnership with the County and City Management Association (CCMA) and is an opportunity for local authorities to showcase examples of solutions-oriented approaches to providing better public services.

View Press Release - 9 November 2021

View Event Brochure

Good Practice in Local Government: Full Seminar

View the full seminar including contributions from the following:

Councillor Fidelis Doherty, Kilkenny County Council

Minister Peter Burke, TD, Minister of State for Planning and Local Government

Michael McCarthy, NOAC Chair

Brendan McGrath, Chief Executive Galway City Council & Chair of CCMA

Case Study Presentations

View individual presentations from the seminar below:

Weather Impact Register App (WIRE)

Presentation by David Mellett, Regional Coordinator for the Climate Action Regional Office

Mayo County Council

The local authority adaptation strategies identified the need to gather and organise data on the impacts of weather events locally in order to inform climate adaptation planning into the future. The Weather Impact Register, or WIRE App, was developed by CARO and supported by the Public Sector Innovation Fund to help meet this need. The system provides a GIS based tool to local authorities to help record and review the impacts of weather events and climate trends in their areas. An App was developed to assist in gathering weather impact information and targeted at those local authority staff that will be on the ground responding to these events as part of the emergency response teams. The dataset generated can be examined on an associated mapviewer that provides a spatial distribution of these impacts to assist in identifying areas of increasing climate risk and support evidence-based decision making and investment.

Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF): A Journey through Collaboration

Presentation by Brian Barrett, Director of Services

Galway City Council

In January 2020, a second call for proposals under the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF) was opened. In response, Galway City Council engaged in a consultative dialogue with potential project partners in the City, including NUIG, GMIT, Iarnród Éireann, Bus Éireann, ESB, IDA, Galway Port Company and community organisations amongst others. From this process a number of key connected and interlinked project proposals were developed by the City Council and its partners which resulted in the City securing a successful funding allocation of €53 million under the URDF programme. This presentation outlines how through extensive collaboration, independent projects from various stakeholders were refined and woven together by Galway City Council to form a cohesive proposal for investment in compact growth in the City of Galway that will unlock and support a further €4 billion of public and private investment. This initiative will fast track the integrated sustainable growth of the City core.

Sustainable Development Goals
at Local Level

Presentation by Dara McGowan, Director of Services

Meath County Council

Meath County Council started on the Sustainable Development Goals (the Goals) journey on the fifth anniversary of the Goals on the 25th September 2020. This involved an awareness programme, linking the Goals to services, initiatives and projects undertaken by the Council and publicising this on social media. In December 2020, the Council were invited to make an application to join an URBACT project to localise the Goals, funded by the EU. The Council nominated Trim to work with 18 other locations across Europe in this pilot project. The project involves working with an URBACT Local Group (ULG) consisting of active citizens from Trim who are involved in volunteerism and community work, to feed local information and ideas into the project. The ultimate goal is to achieve an Integrated Action Plan (IAP). It is anticipated, if the project is successful, it could be replicated in other towns or scaled up to a county level.

Virtual Development Plan

Presentation by Louise McGauran, Senior Planner & Development Plan Lead

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council

The Virtual Room was an online consultation set up to allow access to a virtual consultation of the DLR Draft County Development Plan 2022 -2028. The initiative provided an opportunity for individuals and groups who could not view the plan in person due to the COVID restrictions, to view the plan in a similar layout to what would be provided in a physical display. The Virtual Room was conceived out of a desire to engage members of the community and encourage them to get involved in the plan making process. The room was the number one way in which people interacted with the Draft County Development Plan and allowed interaction across the entire County and beyond. The Virtual Room had a total of 4,280 visits, significantly more than a more traditional display would get. A total of 1,258 submissions were received on the Draft Plan, an increase of 70% from the previous Plan.

Rural Working Hubs

Presentation by Paddy Mahon, Chief Executive

Longford County Council

Remote working is becoming increasingly popular and it creates many positive opportunities for employers, employees and the communities in which they are based. Longford County Council sees the provision of remote working hubs as a key component in creating sustainable and vibrant rural communities in the County. Through the help of work completed by the Western Development Commission, Longford County Council has adopted a cross departmental approach to the development of rural working hubs, identifying the Regeneration Department as the primary contact in the development of hubs with the IT Section playing a key collaboration role also through its implementation of the County Digital Strategy. The County Digital Strategy sees Infrastructure and Connectivity as one of four key pillars placing the provision and promotion of Broadband Connection Points at the heart of creating sustainable and vibrant rural communities. Creating two strategies, implementing them together, Longford has created a platform to rejuvenate its communities.

Streetscape Development

Presentation by John Hayes, City Centre Coordinator

Cork City Council

Cork City Council made permanent changes to the City Centre and suburbs during COVID-19. Using the existing partnership structures that include transport, Gardaí, elected members and business representative organisations, Cork City Council agreed a suite of initiatives to ensure that the City Centre was adapted to meet the needs of businesses and communities in the centre during the pandemic. This was based on agreed principles such that accommodated risk taking and making mistakes. The City Council also required that interventions would be agreed by all stakeholders on the street. The Council was criticised for a short period of consultation, but this meant that possible unintended consequences were avoided. As a result 17 streets are permanently pedestrianised, 4.7km cycling routes were permanently installed and the City Centre, and suburbs, are more appealing to visit.

COVID Chatbot

Presentation by Dominic Byrne, Head of IT

Fingal County Council

Fingal County Council implemented a chatbot on the Council’s website in 2020 to provide information to citizens and businesses about the Council’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. During a time when the offices were closed to the public, the chatbot offered another information channel for the public in addition to phone, website and social media. Like the website and social media, the chatbot has the benefit of being available at a time and place of the citizen’s choosing, with the additional benefit of enabling more focussed responses. The chatbot was specifically designed to answer COVID-related questions – including questions about community support initiatives, business support initiatives, the impact of COVID on Council services, and general COVID questions. The chatbot has been a great success and it is particularly notable that citizens are now asking the chatbot questions about general Council services.

Weather Impact Register App (WIRE)

Presentation by David Mellett, Regional Coordinator for the Climate Action Regional Office

Mayo County Council

Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF): A Journey through Collaboration

Presentation by Brian Barrett, Director of Services

Galway City Council

Sustainable Development Goals
at Local Level

Presentation by Dara McGowan, Director of Services

Meath County Council

Virtual Development Plan

Presentation by Louise McGauran, Senior Planner & Development Plan Lead

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council

Rural Working Hubs

Presentation by Paddy Mahon, Chief Executive

Longford County Council

Streetscape Development

Presentation by John Hayes, City Centre Coordinator

Cork City Council

COVID Chatbot

Presentation by Dominic Byrne, Head of IT

Fingal County Council

You can find presentations from previous Good Practice Seminars at the following:

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The post Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2021 appeared first on National Oversight & Audit Commission.

Good Practice in Local Government Seminar 2020

National Oversight & Audit Commission — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 16:50:07 +0000

Good Practice Seminar 2020

4 November 2020

Good Practice Seminar 2020

4 November 2020

The NOAC ‘Good Practice in Local Government’ seminar was planned to be held in Kilkenny Castle in April 2020 but was a casualty of the COVID lockdown. As a result, for it to proceed NOAC had to plan for its first ever virtual seminar. The event was organised in collaboration with the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) for 4 th of November 2020.

The initial challenge presented by the restrictions gave rise to an opportunity to reach to a wider audience and reduce the time of the seminar as no travel was involved. NOAC was fortunate to have Minister Darragh O’Brien to provide the opening address. It was also an opportunity for him and NOAC to publicly recognise local authorities and in particular their response to the COVID-19 pandemic with technological innovations, altering services and business processes and adapting how they provide public services.

While COVID was an important topic and issue on the day, the seminar also heard about the varied and interesting work that is taking place in local authorities throughout the country and it gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to develop novel solutions to many complex problems. The seminar is an opportunity for local authorities to reflect, share and learn from each other in the Good Practices adopted to deliver better services or to respond to needs identified. Some of the good practice projects and innovations discussed at the seminar included:

Download the Seminar Agenda

Minister O'Brien's Opening Address

Address by Michael McCarthy, Chair of NOAC

Address by Tim Lucey, Chair of the CCMA

Maximising Performance to Drive Economic and Community Development - Tom Enright, Wexford County Council Chief Executive

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Drones at work in your local authority - Frank Curran, Chief Executive and Jason Ulrich, Wicklow County Council

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My Open Library: Best Practice in Accessible Services at Offaly Libraries - Eimear McGinn, Offaly County Council

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Questions and Answers after Session 1

Circular Economy Training for small and micro enterprises - Mary McSweeney, Dublin City Council and Dr. Joanne Rourke, RWMPO

SUPPORTING PRESENTATION VIDEOS

Links to videos about the MODOS programme and participants, as discussed in this presentation, are available below.

- - MODOS (Circular Economy - Training Programme for Businesses):
  - Luncheonette:
  - ViavGreen:
  - Attention Attire:
  - Native Events:

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Climate Action Response - Ciaran Hayes, Chief Executive, Sligo County Council

SUPPORTING PRESENTATION VIDEOS

During his presentation, Ciaran Hayes referred to the Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme and the URDF scheme. More information on these schemes can be found at the links below.